“I don’t like balloons, and for my 40th birthday my entire staff decided to surprise me,” the
former talk-show host, 59, recalls in the October issue of O magazine. “I come downstairs, and the
entire audience is filled with balloons. Literally, I’m stepping over balloons, having to walk
through balloons, and I’m so like ‘Oh! When is one going to pop?'"

The sound, the globophobic explains, reminds her of gunfire, and the thought of balloons “really
freaks me out.”

That day, however, she faced her fear: “No way around it — (I) just had to walk through
them."